My 16-year-old daughter came through the kitchen door with her left arm wrapped from elbow to wrist and said, “Promise me you won’t get mad until you see the result.” Three days later, when she finally removed the bandage, I realized I’d been wrong about far more than what she’d done to her arm.
Riley came home at 9:40 p.m. on a Tuesday.
She kept her jacket on.
That was my first clue.
“Before anyone says anything,” she announced, “promise me you won’t get mad until you see the result.”
Tom looked up from the kitchen table.
“Result of what?”
Riley slowly pulled off her jacket.
Her left forearm was wrapped in gauze and cling film.
I stood.
“Riley. What did you do?”
“You have to wait three days.”
Tom’s chair scraped backward.
“Is that a tattoo?”
Riley pulled her arm against her chest.
“The guy said to leave the covering on until Friday.”
“What guy?”
She immediately realized she’d said too much.
“Riley. What guy? You’re 16!”
“I know how old I am.”
“Where did you get it?”
Riley said nothing.
Tom wanted the shop’s name.
A receipt.
The artist’s phone number.
She gave him none of them.
Then I asked the question I almost wish I hadn’t.
“How much?”
Riley hesitated.
“$340.”
I actually laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
“You spent $340?”
“It was mine.”
“Everything you’ve saved since you were 14?”
She looked down.
“Pretty much.”
My mother’s funeral had been 11 days earlier.
The funeral home invoice was still on our refrigerator beneath a lemon-shaped magnet.
Unpaid.
Tom’s hours had been cut in January.
I was sleeping four hours a night and spending most of those doing sums in my head.
And my daughter had just spent $340 putting something permanent on half her arm.
“Go upstairs,” Tom said.
Riley did.
She didn’t slam the door.
Somehow, that made me angrier.
The next morning, Tom wanted to call every tattoo shop in town.
“You can’t tattoo a 16-year-old without parental consent.”
“I know.”
“So somebody broke the law.”
“We don’t even know where she did it.”
“Exactly.”
Riley walked into the kitchen.
Tom pointed at her arm.
“Shop. Name.”
“No.”
“Riley.”
“I promised.”
That caught my attention.
“Promised who?”
She grabbed an apple.
“Someone.”
Then she left.
At breakfast, Max stared after her.
Max was four and believed Band-Aids could cure everything from scraped knees to bad dreams.
“Why does Riley have a giant Band-Aid?”
“Because she made a bad decision,” Tom muttered.
Riley stopped in the doorway.
Then she looked at Max.
“Because I made a promise.”
That was all she’d say.
By Wednesday night, I was furious.
By Thursday, Tom had stopped speaking to her.
And Riley behaved as though she didn’t care.
That was Riley.
At least, that’s what I’d been telling myself for years.
She didn’t cry easily.
Didn’t hug unless you hugged her first.
At my mother’s funeral, I’d watched relatives sob while Riley stood beside the coffin completely dry-eyed.
Tom had squeezed my shoulder afterward.
“That’s just Riley being Riley.”
I believed him.
Thursday evening, I found the funeral invoice on the counter.
“$2,180,” I whispered.
Riley was filling a glass behind me.
“Still?”
I turned.
“What?”
“That’s what we still owe?”
“Why are you asking?”
She shrugged.
“Just wondered.”
Something in me snapped.
“Maybe because some of us have to think about money before spending hundreds of dollars on ourselves.”
Riley set down her glass.
“I saved that money.”
“Do you have any idea what this family is going through right now?”
She didn’t answer.
“Your grandmother just died. Your father’s hours have been cut. I have Max to look after, bills everywhere, and now this.”
I pointed at her bandage.
“Do you ever think about anyone but yourself?”
Riley’s mouth opened.
Only for a second.
Then it closed again.
“Okay.”
She walked upstairs.
She didn’t cry.
Of course she didn’t.
Friday night was the third night.
Riley came downstairs just after seven and sat on the arm of the couch.
Tom muted the television.
“Three days,” Tom said. “That’s what you told us.”
Riley nodded.
“Then take it off.”
She looked at me.
“Look at it first before you say anything. Please.”
I folded my arms.
Riley started peeling away the covering.
My stomach twisted as more of her forearm appeared.
Then I saw black ink.
Not a skull. Not some boy’s name.
Words.
Thin, slightly shaky cursive ran along her inner forearm.
I knew the handwriting before I finished reading it.
“WHEN IT GETS TOO HEAVY, GIVE ME SOME.”
I stopped breathing.
My mother had written those words.
She’d said them to me hundreds of times growing up.
Bad exam?
Give me some.
Broken heart?
Give me some.
My father died when I was 28, and I spent the first week trying to organize everyone else’s grief.
Mom had taken a stack of condolence cards from my hands.
“When it gets too heavy, Claire, give me some.”
“Where did you get that?”
Riley didn’t answer.
Then Max scrambled off the rug.
“Hey!”
He pointed at Riley’s arm.
